> --- In LandCafe@yahoogroups.com, "roy_langston" <roy_langston@> wrote:
>
> > > The following (the first two of which follow from assertions in your last post, the third is an obvious empirical truth) make up an inconsistent triad:
> > >
> > > 1. Natural rights obtain only with respect to items that can only be taken away, since, without interference those in whom they inhere will exercise them without help.
> >
> > That seems to be a misstatement of what I said in two respects.
>
> It's not a mistatement at all.

Yes, of course it is, as I explained to you very clearly and patiently, and you are now duly ignoring.

> You wrote this:
>
> "Health care can't be a right because someone else has to provide it. It's not something you would otherwise have, like life or liberty."
>
> If rights are what one would "otherwise have" it's simply question-begging to now say (as you subsequently did--see below) that some people would die without help are not "excising" rights that they have.

It's not question begging. It's just a statement of fact. And in any case it is not inconsistent, contrary to your false claim.

> You identify rights as things that people will have unless taken away from of them. But some people will not have life even if no one takes it away from them.

And...? In fact, that describes everyone, eventually. What is your point? You have a right to life as long as you are alive, and as long as no one deprives you of life, your right to life has not been violated. What part of that are you having trouble understanding?

> Now you say "Well, then, they're not exercising them then. That's just confused.

No, it's bleedin' obvious. If you choose not to speak, that's not a violation of your right to free speech. Likewise, if you are unable to speak, that's not a violation of your right to free speech. What part of that are you having trouble understanding?

> If you don't see that, I can't help you, but it remains a not terribly complicated point.

More accurately, it's not a terribly meaningful or relevant "point."

> >First, there is no assumption that people "will" exercise their rights without help (that's up to them), only that violations of rights are only ever committed by other people, not by nature. A quadraplegic's inability to exercise his right to liberty without >help is not a violation of his rights,
>
> Of course it's not a violation of his rights--if he has any.

Huh? That's a premise, a given. The statements you falsely claimed were inconsistent assume that people have rights. If you want to talk about whether people have rights or not, that's another discussion, and not relevant to your false claim that my statements were inconsistent.

Try to keep your eye on the ball. You claimed an inconsistency on my part. Now you are trying to shift the ground to a demonstration that people have rights. But that is a premise of the statements you claim are inconsistent. Your new claim of question begging is ignoratio elenchi.

> One can only "exercise a right" if one HAS a right. You were going to demonstrate that babies HAVE them,

Oh? Where and when did you get that idea? Please provide a direct, verbatim, in-context quote to that effect. My statement was only that HAVING a right to life imposes only a negative restraint on others' behavior, not a positive burden of responsibility for sustaining that life.

> and can't do this by telling us that they fail to exercise them.

See above. You are just trying to blow smoke by claiming I have failed to demonstrate a premise I in fact did not attempt to demonstrate. I've noticed you do that fairly often.

> >and neither is someone else's disinclination to provide that help. Second, natural rights only obtain wrt what can be taken away BY OTHERS, but that doesn't imply that they only obtain wrt what can ONLY be taken away. E.g., the fruits of one's labor can be taken away by force, violating their owners' rights, but they can also be given or exchanged voluntarily, which does not violate rights.
>
> That's all either confused or irrelevant.

It is certainly not confused except to the extent that your original claim was confused (highly likely), and if your objections had any meaning (still an open question), it is not irrelevant.

> > > 2. Human beings have a right to life.
> > >
> > > 3. Human babies (which are human beings) will quickly die without significant assistance.
> >
> > So given the above amendments to your misinterpretation of what I wrote, where is the inconsistency?
>
> See above.

I see no indication above that you have even attempted a logical argument. Indeed, to accuse me first of inconsistency and in the next breath of question begging is self-evidently nonsensical and self-contradictory.

> Again, if you can't see it, I likely can't make it any clearer for you.

Probably not. But as I've explained, the fault is unlikely to be mine.

-- Roy Langston

Harry Pollard

JDK, Those who survive are presumably the fittest to survive for the fittest just describes those who have survived. With regard to your last sentence –

Message 111 of 111
, Nov 23, 2012

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JDK,

Those who survive are presumably the fittest to survive for the "fittest" just describes those who have survived.

Evolution is not really: the survival of the "fittest" It is just survival of that which survives. Evolution is a way of describing the process of how variation within a population will lead to variation eventually of species. There are plenty of genes along for the ride which are not particularly "the fittest".

Yes the survival of the two apostolic lungs of Christianity (Catholics and the Eastern church) despite its massive weakness and in fact embracement of weakness of the god who becomes human and is rejected and put to death is a puzzle and crazy on its face. It drove Nietzsche crazy (well that and syphillus drove him crazy). It also drove the communists crazy too. Massive defense? How many tanks does the church have?

--- In LandCafe@yahoogroups.com, John David Kromkowski <jdkromkowski@...> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 12:01 PM, mattbieker <agrarian.justice@...
> > wrote:
> >
> > The catholic church has one real function: serving the clergy. When it
> > was able to, it dominated a large swath of the earth in an imperial form.
> > It can't now, so it fills out whatever niches it can; but the main thing is
> > ensuring that members of clergy don't have to go and get real jobs.
> >
> Thanks for sharing this one too. I'm getting better picture of Land Cafe.
> It really is best if we get it all out in the open. It's for the same
> reason I won't hide my background.
>
> This isn't a cocktail party, where we need to avoid the topic for
> charitable purposes - or at least for the purposes of not interfering with
> mutual love of beer or gin or your choice. I'd still have a beer in
> Baltimore (once), with any of you clowns.
>
> JDK

*shrugs* Whatever one thinks of Roy's evolutionary basis for morals, I think there's fairly clearly a pseudo-evolutionary basis for ideas and institutions. Dawkins made this case in his "The Selfish Gene." Basically, ideas are duplicated, with variation, in the minds of individuals; from there, it's survival of the fittest. The conceptual equivalent to a gene being a "meme." Why do religious institutions survive despite being a load of crap that generally act as a drain on society? They're very advanced critters in the world of memes; they've evolved a whole host of defenses to offset their massive weaknesses, such as the notion that it's not polite or even acceptable to question a man's faith, or that without beliefs in these memes, we have no basis for social behavior.

Catholicism isn't necessarily the most egregious case of this sort of memetic virus (that has to go to Scientology, don't you think?), but that's what it is, and all the bottom line of them all is the same: enrichment (both financial as well as emotional) of clergy. Still and all, its senseless and generally ad-hoc opposition to contraception, even in the light of AIDS epidemics, is horrible enough in and of itself to give me a fairly thoroughgoing distaste for it in particular, and I'd pretty much rather not see any meme I deem useful or good to be mixed up with it.

Personally, I think one of the best parts of online discussion is that there's less tendency to hold back one's beliefs; many lament this, saying that the internet just makes everyone rude because they don't fear social repercussions, but I believe there's inherent value there, as it allows for a more rapid evolution of memes. The noise and nastiness comes with the territory, and I think people will just eventually find a new normal.

One common Christian meme is certainly right though: hate the sin, and not the sinner. I agree, I'd have a beer with any of you. It's worth making a conscious effort not to take attacks against our beliefs too personally, because it turns out everyone tends to be wrong quite often.

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